thoughts from the deep recesses

This is the most current read on my nightstand... And wow. It's knocking me for a loop. Granted - I'm reading it coming off of two of the busiest weeks in my life, when I was literally running from one thing to the next with barely time to breathe... so I may be a little vulnerable in this area. That kind of busy-ness sucks the life out of me. After two weeks of it, I needed some down time. And this book is about allowing yourself some down time. I've always been purposeful about choosing wisely how we spend our time... careful not to overschedule the kids or get sucked into the pressure to have them involved in every possible extra curricular activity known to man in order to raise the most well-rounded people... I never bought into the notion that my kids would be more successful adults if they knew how to dance and play instruments and excel at three sports and discuss good literature and cook and have good manners because they'd learned it in formal lesson...

 I had one very nervous boy on my hands yesterday afternoon. On the drive down the hill to pick Emma up, there was much discussion about how and when to give her the corsage... "Do I hand it to her immediately when she opens the door? Do I wait until she comes out? Will she invite me in?" So many questions...  And then she wasn't quite ready... so the anticipation grew...  But eventually she came out (beautiful!) and he managed to fumble and get the box open... all was good.  At first they were a little akward...  But then they started to relax and remember what good friends they are... It was an 'epic-ly epic' night, according to Kyler's Facebook status. I'm so glad he had so much fun... They went to a friend's house before the dance where there were some kids who weren't going to the dance and a few that were... the moms worked together to make them all dinner - pulled pork sandwiches with homemade onion rings... salads and fruit and...

Yesterday was Kyler's second-to-the-last Greater Spokane League cross country meet. After running varsity on Saturday, he was back to running JV since the seniors who'd been out taking the SAT were back. This JV team runs in a very tight pack. In this picture below you can see (from left to right in the orange and black) Connor, Scott, Davis, mysterious boy whose name I don't know, Kyler, another mystery boy and Grafton. Connor, Davis, Kyler and Grafton are the top four runners on the JV team. Kyler and Grafton (who are VERY good friends) have been battling it out all year for 3rd and 4th place on the team... going into this race, they were 4-4. Connor (on the left above) has been dominating all of their races. He's taken first place for the team every race this year. In this picture below, he's already pulled ahead of the pack... Conner had already passed when I took this picture. Lewis and Clark was hosting yesterday's race at their 'home' course. It...

Every night before a race, the parents of the cross country runners at Kyler's high school host a spaghetti feed... I had helped at one last year, and decided this year to take the plunge and host one. So I recruited helpers, cooked up 10 pounds of spaghetti, borrowed LOTS of tables and chairs and made a big pot of sauce. My friends Julie and Michelle were my helpers and they both brought food as well. And then they started showing up... two boys at first, then a few girls, then a larger group of boys... and before long I had 60 teenagers in my backyard. They are all supposed to bring food to contribute... we had lots of bread, some veggies, fruits, and salads, desserts, drinks, and plates and plates full of spaghetti. They ate. And ate. And ate. They were so kind and appreciative. What a great group of kids. Even the little brothers got in on the action... I can't wait to host again next year.

The darkness is beginning to creep in... the other night when I left work at 6:30 it was completely dark. Oh no! And now Kyler leaves for his morning run (6:30!) in the dark. Less than 12 hours of light. And it's only going to get shorter... time for walking in the dark again. Kyler ran his first varsity race on Saturday... several seniors on the team were taking their SAT and couldn't be there so the three top JV runners got to run varisty... He had a decent race - it's tough to go from the front of the pack to the middle - the race feels really different from back there, I guess. But he finished 39th out of 85 runners, which doesn't seem too shabby to me... not for his very first time out of the gates in that varsity uniform! Ethan had a spectator snafu at the race... he saw his friend from a distance and wanted to go stand with him to watch, but didn't realize that his friend was on the other side of the course... so he ran across the path, somehow slipped on the...